So after walking out of the IMAX that was showing the Watchmen, I didn’t know how I felt about the movie. I twittered that I had seen it and that going out of one’s way for the IMAX version was not worth it. But did I like it? The following contains no spoilers, because I fucking hate spoilers and had to keep plugging my ears and singing “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” whenever anyone tried to tell me anything about it.
The answer is, that yes, yes I did. I really only realized what was going on in my head when I saw the last half of Spiderman today – which I think I’ve seen like five times..
Y’see there are Superhero movies like Spiderman, X-Men, and Iron Man. All of which I truly enjoyed. Interesting characters, good plotlines and subplots, great action sequences, little funny bits – all around good stuff.
But the Watchmen is not that kind of film. It’s closer to a Sci-Fi film, or even some character driven piece like Tarantino’s work. Sure, there’s some plot in there as to what’s going on, and there are some cool fight scenes, but that’s not what the movie’s about. It’s got that Sci-Fi “what if…” feeling about it, and also asks “what would hero types actually be like if they really were in the contemporary world?”
And getting those two types of movies mixed up is my mistake. This movie isn’t that movie. It’s very good, and interesting, but it’s not an action movie, and it’s not a superhero movie. Keeping those things straight makes it easier to think about and realize I enjoyed.
But if you’re not the type of person who wants to watch a movie that you could walk out of and wonder whether or not you liked it, then I wouldn’t watch this one.
But if you’re okay with that, I think the film is very good – and based on my brief readings of the graphic novel, pretty close to it.